“B” is for Balancing

There have been many times that I have gotten onfacebook and seen posts from friends wishing there were more hours in a day.

If you were to take that 24 hours and break it down to: 8 hoursforsleep, 8 hoursforwork, and 8 hours to do everything else it should work, right? But what happens if you have an hour commute to and from work? Now you’ve lost 2 hours that you can either take away from sleep, or the everything else. And don’t forget that half an hour lunch break and the two 15 minute breaks. Now your 8houra day job becomes 9 hours a day plus two hours to get there and back.

And your time for everything seems to dwindle away. How do you balanceworkingand sleeping, with cooking, laundry, housecleaning, and if you have kids; homework, soccer practice,bathtimes, and finally bedtime.Ahhh, take a sigh of relief and get back to trying to balance everything that still needs to be done. 🙂

Evidently 24 hours just isn’t enough time to get everything done that needs to be done.

Even though my kids aren’t little anymore and I don’t work full time, I still have to balance my hours in a day.

One thing I have found helpful are to-do lists, but I try to keep them simple and generalized.

My list may contain;

Laundry

Clean house

Grocery store and bank

Write

By not making the list specific and detailed, I can make the bed, do the dishes, and wipe down the bathrooms and cross off housecleaning if I so choose, because some days we just don’t have enough time to scrub the floors, run the vacuum, and wash the windows.

And there are some days that I just don’t have time to sit down and write 1,500 words, but even if I only get a paragraph or two done, I feel I’ve accomplished something.

Multitasking is a great way to free up some time.

Throw a load of laundry in the washer and put the dishes to soak in a sink full of hot sudsy water. While the clothes are washing and the dishes are soaking, make the beds and wipe down the bathrooms.

There are many ways to free up some of your time and help you balance out the measly 24 hours we have. Those are just a couple of mine, now it’s your turn.

How do you balance your time?

Any special tips and tricks you’d like to share?

And I meant to post the link to the A-Z challenge yesterday so that you can check out some of the other blogs that are participating.

There are a lot to choose from with all kinds of topics from cooking and baking, to art and writing, and just about everything in between! There are 2,258 (I like that number 🙂 ) So there’s something for everyone. Just click here

I totally sympathize with the kids who can’t sit still in class. I can’t, so why should they? When I was pregnant (both times) I was teaching at the university, and drove my (many of them older) students crazy because I would not sit down. I couldn’t!

I clean different rooms each day so it doesn’t seem so overwhelming. Saturday is a “Serve Yourself” day, so at least I get one day off from cooking!
But as I don’t work any more due to health problems and I’m an early riser, I get most of my writing done in the morning when the house is quiet and I can concentrate.
Great post. Happy A to Z’ing. 🙂

Balance is tough for anyone. I wonder though if 24 hours in a day would help? Chances are employers would end up extended their average work day. LOL. It is tough to work full time, have a family, and try to write! ~~Emmly Jane, On The Porch Swing

I actually seemed to get more done when I was working full time, maybe because I had less time to get everything done, and less time to waste. Now with all the time on my hands I seem to procrastinate. 🙂

Amen to that, Karen! When I’m busy, I get in the habit of being busy. When we have breaks (like school holidays when I try to spend more time just hanging out with the boys), I get in the habit of goofing off and have trouble getting my groove back.

Multi-tasking is the key to success. For example, something oven-baked or heated (and I mean the sort of meal that won’t cause splatter) can be cooking while you do something else. Writing is a good choice. 🙂